


Jenny Greenteeth

by The Feels Whale (miscellea)



Series: Court of the Bitter King [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, abused mythology, celtic monsters, court of the bitter king
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscellea/pseuds/The%20Feels%20Whale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People have been drowning in the river near Beacon Hills, but that isn’t a Pack problem until the first one washes up half-eaten on the shore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jenny Greenteeth

Being neither a coastal town nor anywhere near the big state parks, Beacon Hills has never had much in the way of a tourism industry. Still, there’s a medium-sized lake with an okay resort that people looking for a quiet summer will visit, but most weekend visitors to the area are inevitably bound for the River.

Beacon River is a long lazy serpent of water that curls around the exterior rim of town and loops through the reserve. It has wide sandy banks and a gentle current that make it ideal for intertubing. It’s not uncommon for those locals lucky enough to have river front property to look out their windows as see a group of weekenders lazily floating down the river with a cooler strapped into its own set of floats to provide cool drinks and sandwiches.

Twice a year the school district organizes a big clean-up to catch all the discarded water bottles and beer cans leftover from the busy season. The Beacon Hill Gazette runs an article on whoever finds the weirdest piece of litter. Last year the article featured a blurry picture of Joe Greenberg crouched on top of not one, not two, not three, but FOUR shopping carts from Ikea. Normally that wouldn’t be so strange, but the nearest Ikea is over five hundred miles away.

This year, Stiles realizes with an annoyed pang of nausea, it’s going to be him …hopefully without a picture of the partially gnawed floater he just snagged out of the current thinking it was a garbage bag.

He’s got his phone out and is already dialing when Scott and Isaac come crashing through the bushes, both wild-eyed and panting with twitching nostrils.

“Dude, what is that sme… oh, _aaaugh_ …” Scott recoils away from what has to be a truly heinous stench and Isaac turns a particularly alarming shade of green.

“Do not even think of puking here.” Stiles points at him. “Go. Go over there and get downwind of it. I’m calling the cops already.”

“…but, Stiles, it’s been… she’s…” Scott makes a half-hearted gesture that somehow encapsulates the concept of ‘missing pieces.’ “Shouldn’t we call Dr. Deaton? Or… or Derek? _Somebody_?”

“There are scavengers in the river, Scott.” Isaac tugs on Scott’s sleeve, drawing him away to Stiles’ fathomless relief. He and the werewolf share a _Look_. They’ve been sharing a lot of _Looks_ lately and most of them have a lot to do with the fact that Scott takes a lot of minding. “It’s probably not anything supernatural. This is a job for the police.” He makes a wan smile in Stiles’ direction, a sort of ‘I’ve got this’ that Stiles seriously appreciates.

Scott and Isaac have seen way too much over that past year that no kid should ever have to see at all. Stiles is no less young, but he at least cut his teeth on the crime scene photos his dad often peruses over dinner. He’s long since acquired the knack of unfocusing his eyes and letting them skitter over what he’s looking at so that icy blue/white/red/green/violet mass never really coalesces into a face unless his concentration slips.

The call goes through to dispatch and Stiles gives his report. Fortunately there’s already a few cars in the area minding the clean-up alongside some ambulances waiting for the inevitable case of heatstroke so he doesn’t have to stand there fogging his own vision for long before a pair of officers arrive and carefully herd him away from the grisly sight.

He gives a lackluster statement much to their disappointment. ‘No, I didn’t know it was a body when I pulled it in’, ‘yes, I’m part of the river clean up’, ‘no, I didn’t see any suspicious people in the area’, etc., etc., _ad nauseum_. It’s like they expected the perpetrator to have been merrily toddling down the shore watching the victim bob along, which isn’t _outside_ the realm of possibility but is definitely right there on the border.

What passes for the Beacon Hills forensics team makes him stick around for skin flakes or whatever it is they think he might have contaminated their crime scene with until his dad arrives to run them off and send Stiles home.

For the record? Stile could totally have done without having to see the look of tired resignation on his dad’s face at having his son be a key witness is yet another questionable death.

Derek’s waiting in his bedroom when Stiles lets himself in and, dude, he can’t even jump anymore it’s so expected. Something weird goes on in town? Somebody’s going to trip over Derek in their bedroom. Today it’s Stiles’ turn.

“Do not _even_ with me.” He points at Derek who looks mildly affronted at the reception he’s receiving. “I just got done being grilled over an open flame by Officers Dumb and Dumber. I don’t have it in me to deal with you right now. Yes, I saw a body. Yes, it was partially eaten. _No_ , it did not look like fish did it unless there are suddenly sharks in the river and **NO** _it did not have any arms_ _or legs_ _left_. Now can I _please_ go throw up in privacy?”

To his surprise Derek actually jumps up and steers him into the runty _en suite_ that serves his bedroom with a hand at the back of his neck and …yeah, apparently you can only stave off shock for so long before it demands it’s pound of flesh. Once he gets done throwing up every last thing he’s eaten in the past forty-eight hours that’s when the shakes set in. Derek dumps Stiles on his bed where he rolls himself up into a blanket burrito.

Derek must leave for a bit, Stiles really cannot say, but when he returns he ruthlessly strips the blankets away from Stiles’ head and …oh. Ice pack to the back of the neck. That’s… nice. That’s _really_ nice. The incessant buzzing in-between his ears starts to die down a little and the nausea ebbs down to manageable levels.

“Okay, I take it back.” He groans. “I can totally deal with you. You are the best. Scott better watch out.”

“You’re welcome.” It says something that, while Stiles cannot _see_ the eyeroll, he can still _hear_ it. “Are you going to be all right on your own?”

Stiles snakes a hand out of his blankets to give Derek a thumbs up. He hears a sigh but Derek’s hand briefly passes over the crown of his head. “Keep me in the loop.” He mumbles.

“I will.” Derek says. “For now find out what you can about stuff that haunts rivers and drowns people.”

“Mmm, it’s weird already.” Stiles rolls over with one arm cast over his eyes. “I can name like five off the top of my head: Kappa, grindlylows, rusalka, bunyips, and Bad Peg O’Nell but their victims tend to be kids. Myths along those lines develop in order to keep children away from bad water. The floater was an adult. For all we know she got dumped in the river by her attacker.”

“Land predators tend to go straight for the internal organs; more nutrition.” Derek makes a thoughtful noise under his breath. “You said the extremities were devoured in this case. Sounds more like an aquatic predator.”

Stiles takes a breath. The man has a point. “Fair enough. I’ll keep reading. There’s still sirens and mermaids and stuff, but they’re ocean-based. The river starts as mountain run off so it flows into the bay instead out from it. Is it okay if I keep hoping it’s nothing?” He asks. “Because there’s all those ‘animal attacks’ one county over to worry about and the wolflings are still AWOL.”

“Just be prepared.” There’s a sound like the window opening and the scuff of boots on shingles then silence. Derek doesn’t say ‘goodbye’. He never does. It’s kind of his thing, which Stiles is inured to at this point; Derek’s total lack of basic manners. Probably he would keel over and die if the man ever started using words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ so it’s probably for the best.

Stiles waits until he’s well and truly gone before reaching over the edge of his bed and snapping his fingers. “Hey, lazybutts. C’mere a sec.”

Some of his baby cousins (rambunctious little fucks who stowed away in his sleeves last summer) crawl up the length of his arm and wiggle into the blankets with him, cozying up to his body heat, and blink at him from the darkness under his shirt with pinprick eyes.

“There’s an intruder in the river.” He tells them. “Find it. Name it. Report back to me. Don’t get eaten.”

They whine with thready little voices only he can hear because they were _comfortable_ where they were and haven’t finished all the comic books he’s got stashed under the bed, but slink off to do the job anyway.  It’s possible he’s a bad influence, but who cares? There isn’t a better one on offer and if his aunts and uncles were actually going to raise their children they’d have started before now.

He’s breathing easier now and with that comes the need to be doing, but he knows that if he isn’t home when his dad gets back then there will be holy hell to pay. This will have to do for now.

Stiles lays in bed and closes his eyes, tries to sleep, and fails. Eventually he gets up to make some nachos, but halfway through lunch the image of a woman’s bloated discolored face knifes through his brain and he’s back in the bathroom again. He cleans himself up as best he can, rinses his mouth, and pours a glass of water. By the time he’s done, his cousins are creeping back into the house through the power lines and plumbing. They’re all but vibrating their excitement and leave him with a name.

‘ _Jenny Greenteeth_.’ They whisper, curled up in the shell of his ear. ‘ _Jenny Greenteeth has come_.’

“ _Fantastic_.” Stiles sighs and rubs his sinuses with both index fingers. “That’s exactly what I needed just now.”


	2. Chapter 2

His dad is pleasantly surprised to find Stiles still at home, but there’s something weighing on his mind and it takes all through dinner and half a beer for him to find the words he needs.

“Did something eat that girl?” Sheriff Stilinski is sitting on the couch, hunched forward as he teases the edge of the label on his beer. “One of… your kind of things?”

Stiles pauses in the midst of clearing the table. Normally they don’t talk about this stuff. His dad pretends Stiles is no different than any other teenager because he knows on some level that his belief ties Stiles to the daylight world. So they don’t talk about it.

He’s pretty sure this is the reason he’s been able to get away with so much for so long.

“Yeah.” He says because here at least he doesn’t have to lie. “I just got the confirmation.”

“Jesus.” The Sheriff drops his head into the palm of one hand hiding his eyes away. “Is this what you’ve been doing all year? Things like that?”

Stiles holds his tongue because it’s not clear whether his father is asking whether he fights supernatural creepy-crawlies or eats unfortunate tourists. It’s a crucial moment and he feels frozen on the edge of something that could mean the end of lying to his dad or the beginning of the end for them. “You’re going to have to specify, Dad.” He says at last.

The Sheriff raises his head, stricken because despite everything he is still Stiles’ father. He can see better than anyone how his words were received. “I meant the monsters, son.” He puts the beer down and Stiles is just human enough to feel relieved by that. “I didn’t... I know you wouldn’t.”

“No, you don’t.” Stiles shakes his head because he has half-brothers who do. “…but I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“You didn’t answer my question, I notice.” His dad sits back in his seat. “Stiles, can’t you just… _talk_ to me?”

And there it is.

“No.” Stiles tries to smile and wonders if it’s as painful to look at as it feels. “I can’t. I _really_ wish I could, but the parts that are mine to share don’t tell the right story. I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” The Sheriff asks, fixing him with a look that all but strips his skin away to reveal whatever it is that’s lurking underneath. “ _Are_ you sorry?”

“Yeah.” Stiles turns back to the sink. “More so every day.”

There’s a text waiting on his phone when he checks after dinner. It’s from Scott.

**Gt wrd frm Allsn. Moer ‘croc attcks’ up river nxt county ovr. Argnts now on high alert**.

Stiles shoves the phone back into his pocket and pinches his nose. “Awesome.” He sighs. “It just keeps getting better.”

 

* * *

 

All jokes aside, Derek doesn’t actually show up in Scott’s rooms all that much and almost never in Stiles’. It’s not something he’s prone to doing outside of an emergency so Stiles is kind of surprised to see him sitting on the windowsill when he trudges upstairs for the evening.

Twice in one day is definitely not part of his usual pattern.

“He’s downstairs watching television.” Derek says quietly when Stiles leans back into the hall, trying to gauge his dad’s location in the house. “You got Scott’s text.”

“Yeah.” Stiles closes the door behind him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the Hunters’ will do their actual job for once instead of immediately going on a wolf hunt.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.” Derek swings his legs down to the carpet and closes the window. So. He’s sticking around.

Stiles wonders if it’s too hot to stay at Hale house or if maybe Derek’s still avoiding Peter. He can’t really blame the guy for either reasons. Peter 2.0 is somehow even creepier in his own mild-mannered pleasant way. Maybe it’s because Stiles can see remnants of the person Peter must have been before the fire in him now, clinging to the edges of his frame like bits of tattered paper. He can’t imagine what it must be like for Derek who not only knew him from before but _loved_ him.

“Oh, I won’t.” Stiles promises and flops down on his bed where a couple of books are waiting for him. “I dearly hope you aren’t expecting me to have results already because this is unreasonable even for you.”

Derek favors him with the ‘bitch please’ expression that seems to be a trait inherited by all Hales at birth and takes a seat in Stiles’ office chair. “You were upset earlier.” He says, which is the understatement of the century right there.

“I’m handling it.” Stiles cracks open one of his books and pretends to read it, hoping that maybe Derek will take the hint. It’s bad enough that he’s already gotten to see everything Stiles has had to eat for the past two days, but now he wants to talk about _feelings_? “I miss the days when you crept around in the forest and doled out information like it was your _actual blood_.”

“No, you don’t.” Derek sighs (probably rolling his eyes as well for bonus impact) and takes away Stiles’ book.

“Hey, I was reading that.” Stiles objects grasping for it.

“No, you weren’t.” Derek tosses the book over to the opposite end of the room where it lands in a pile of unsorted laundry. “If you were you’d have noticed it was upside down.” He frowns and visibly tries to rearrange his expression into …holy _god_ , Derek Hale is trying to be a _responsible adult_. Must be time for the apocalypse already. “About what you saw…”

“I’ve seen bodies before, Derek.” Stiles points out, settling his now empty hands on his stomach. He’s seen bodies before they even became ‘bodies’ and seen them in the process of becoming one. “You don’t need to hold my hand.”

Derek cocks an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t rise to the bait. “Allison’s father shared pictures of the crime scene. It looked gruesome, even for us.” His fingers are flexing in and out like his claws are prickling just below the surface of his skin. _Wow_ , he looks like he wants to be part of the conversation even less than Stiles does. “Isaac says you and Scott haven’t been talking as much lately.”

“Isaac would know.” He pulls a face at the venom that slips into his tone. He hadn’t meant that, has been trying to make peace with Scott and Isaac’s growing friendship, but there’s a part of him that’s old and dark and doesn’t like to share its toys. He tries not to listen to it much, but that’s the problem with ugly feelings. Just because you don’t want to feel that way, that it’s not fair or rational or balanced, doesn’t mean you can just shut it off. You just grapple with it from day to day and hope that it doesn’t break loose where anyone else can see. Eventually you either win or it claws its way out of you at the worst possible moment.

Scott can have friends who aren’t Stiles. He, in fact, probably _should_ have other friends. It’s not his fault Stiles sucks at the whole aspect of meeting new people. They don’t tend to last very long.

“Besides.” He says, hoping to change the subject. “It wasn’t the worst. Seeing Peter’s nurse folded up in the trunk of her own car a week after she vanished? That was arguably the worst.” The floater woman hadn’t smelled too bad, but the nurse had been locked in an airtight trunk for however long so the smell had _concentrated_.

Stiles remembers that the most; being hit with this visceral wall of sticky-sweet _stench_ that was almost cloying in its pervasiveness. You could drown in a smell like that.

“I’m not talking about your dad’s disgusting pictures.” Derek says and Stiles would dearly love to know how Derek knows about those; a project for another day.

“Neither am I, amigo.” Stiles lets his eyes drift shut. “Neither am I.”

“Christ.” When he looks Derek rubbing his temples with both index fingers and it’s so much like his dad’s myriad ‘ _how the hell do I deal with this kid?_ ’ gestures that it startles a laugh out of Stiles. Derek looks up with a mildly affronted glare. “What?”

“Nothing. Just. I see that pose a lot.” He rolls over on his side. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about me.” He’s dealt with worse and come through to the other side. There are bigger things to worry about than his dubious mental health; the impending apocalypse for one. “You should go. Isaac and Scott saw it too.”

He can hear the faint squeak of springs and plastic wheels as Derek vacates the desk chair and crosses over the window. There’s a scrape as he opens it and then…

“It’s not weakness.” He can almost hear Derek grinding his teeth. “We aren’t _actual_ wolves. You can be weak in front of your pack.”

Stiles rolls over and finds Derek looking at him with … he doesn’t even know what to call that look. It’s pinched and a little pissy, but there’s a faint aspect of desperation to it –of outright longing. “Is that what we are?” Stiles genuinely wants to know.

“I’m trying.” Derek says and it occurs to Stiles that he really _is_. Two months ago the Derek Hale he knew would have cheerfully gouged his own eyeballs out before voluntarily doing something like admitting other people have feelings, much less that those feelings could possibly get hurt.

Stiles drops his gaze because Derek is just way too earnest for him right now. “Okay.” He says to the wall and not even he can say what exactly it is he’s agreeing to. “Just …not right now, all right?”

“All right.” Derek murmurs. It sounds like a rain check.

And then he’s gone.

Stiles pulls out his phone and considers sends a group text to Scott and Isaac, but finds himself at a loss as to how to word it. In the end he doesn’t send any message at all and falls asleep with his phone still in his hand and his cousins rustling around underneath his bed.

He opens his eyes much later when the moon hangs heavy in the sky and the town has gone quiet.

His cousins crawl into his shirtsleeves as he dresses himself and creeps down the stairs. There’s a light on when he reaches the bottom landing and it’s his dad sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by his files. There’s a glass tumbler at his elbow that Stiles hates to see.

His dad looks up as Stiles toes into his shoes. “I’m pretty sure you’re still grounded.” He says without heat.

“Sorry, dad.” Stiles says and means it. “I have to go.”

His dad has his cop face on. It’s not his dad face, which can be happy or sad or disappointed. The cop face is a smooth mask no deeper than a mirror. Stiles _hates_ the cop face.

They stare at one another for a long quiet moment, Stiles and the Cop, until Sherriff Stilinski looks back down at his phots …scene after scene of gruesome death with no rhyme or reason that he seems to be able to see.

“You need to be back in time for school.” He says low and determined. “This needs to stop.”

No specifics on what ‘this’ is, but Stiles thinks it’s as close to a blessing as he’s likely to receive. So he presses a kiss against his dad’s temple even though he’s technically too old for the mushy emotional stuff.

“I will.” Stiles promises and lets himself out the back door.  

His cousins act as his guide. They’re stronger at night –or perhaps just bolder and cluster along the fine bones in his hands on the steering wheel. A car ride is probably an overdue treat in their opinion, although the Jeep’s engine grumbles in sullen warning as a few peel off to investigate her interior. They hurry back.

The trip isn’t long. Stiles’ family could never afford riverfront property, but his mom loved the water. She would walk barefoot on the shore with her skirt knotted up on one side and a big floppy straw hat on to protect her pale skin from the sun. She never tanned or burned, but strong sun hurt her eyes. To this day, Stiles thinks of her when he has to slide on a pair of sunglasses.

Jenny is not lurking on his mother’s favorite patch of sandy beach. She wouldn’t _dare_. Her patch of ground is further east closer to the center of town where the summer people rented their paddle boats and canoes.

She’s sitting on the muddy river bank when Stiles finds her combing the weeds out of her long dark hair. Her skin is clammy and tinted a pale blue from long exposure to the water. She’s bare from the waist up and her breasts sag down low, only barely concealed from view by clingy locks of hair mingled with riverweeds. Still, there’s something about her face –the remnants of a winsome smile turned twisted and cruel. Stiles thinks that if ever she was human, she was pretty then.

Jenny is not pretty now.

The hag smiles for him as he approaches with sharp little teeth shaped like arrowheads or sharksteeth and algae grows in-between each tooth giving the slick shiny ivory a greenish cast… except for those places stained brick-red with aging blood.

‘ _Such a_ pretty.’ She burbles in a voice like water over smooth stones and sets her comb down by her side as she reaches for him. ‘ _Oh, so pretty, you are; a prince without flaw. Jenny has come to serve you, little prince_.’

“I don’t need servants who eat my neighbors.” Stiles tells her, holding back so she can’t actually touch him. “Go back to the rapids, Jenny. The water is too sweet for you here.”

‘ _Jenny has come here and here Jenny will stay_.’ She murmurs. Motes of light like will-o-the-wisps dance in the green depths of her eyes. She slips down from her seat and sinks into the shallow water until only those witch-lit eyes are visible over the water’s edge. ‘ _Jenny was bidden seek you out. There is no leaving before it is time_.’

“Who sent you here?” Stiles demands. “You won’t survive in this place. This river won’t let you take children.”

‘ _There are others_.’ Jenny’s laugh is a fish breaching the surface of a lake. ‘ _The careless, the cruel, the neglectful… the ambitious_. _All are good meat_.’

“Not for long.” Stiles meets and hold’s Jenny’s gaze. The lights beckon, but he stays on the shore. “ _Who_ sent you?”

‘ _Sweet prince_.’ Jenny murmurs and smiles with all her teeth. ‘ _You know who commands us_.’

Stiles closes his eyes and nods. He’d hoped he was wrong, but… but nothing. He knew. He knows. Even so, he can’t help but ask. “What does she want?”

‘ _What She always wants, sweet prince_. _What She will_ always _want._ ’ Jenny sighs. ‘ _You_.’

**Author's Note:**

> My mythology continues to be hodgepodge and twisted all to hell and beyond, but still entertaining I hope. Here a run down of what shows up in Jenny Greenteeth (updated as characters and monsters appear);
> 
> Shadow Babies: They are my own creation, I have to admit. It’s my own little fantastical headcanon for where Fae come from. They’re little fragments of the thoughts, ideas, and dreams of immortal creatures that are powerful enough to become entities in their own right. They aren’t that strong and don’t have much in the way of a physical form, which is why they hide in the shadow so larger things don’t eat them until they grow big enough to create their own body and identity. Whether they do that by slowly growing over time as they learn and develop or eating their weaker cousins is largely determined by an individual’s nature.
> 
> Most Fae in this universe are half-orphans being as they were born from a fleeting thought or idea that was quickly forgotten. Stiles was probably born a while before his mom decided that he was going to make it. His upbringing is really atypical of his race. Reynard is a better example. He was ‘born’ in the more traditional Fae style and his behavior is largely self-determined, which is a shame because he has a lousy personality and an abusive relationship with risk-taking which is how he ended up as the Wild Hunt’s personal chew toy.
> 
> (If you read this and thought to yourself “Wait, that makes it sound like Fae reproduce through some bizarre form of spiritual parthenogenesis” then bonus points to you. They pretty much do and indiscriminately at that. No one is ever going to tell Stiles’ dad, though. Stiles has made it clear that knifing is the very least of what he will do to such an offender.) 
> 
> Jenny Greenteeth also goes by the names Bag Peg O’nell, Peg Powler, and Wicked Jenny. The Rusalka, Bunyip, and Kappa are all monsters made up by parents who wanted to frighten their children away from dangerous water. In my headcanons those stories have a way of coming true if they’re told and re-told enough. (The name Jenny Greenteeth can also be used as a name for duck weed.)
> 
> Visually, I based Jenny off a figure from Jamaican folklore called the River Mumma who inhabits the rivers of Jamaica and sits on the rocky banks to comb her long black hair with a golden comb. Legend says you shouldn’t look at her if you happen by her, there’s no telling what she’ll do if you meet her eyes. She is unlikely to drown kids though. I still wouldn’t mess with her tho.


End file.
